Street Scenes

Main Street, Northampton Mass (2)

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The view looking west from the corner of Main & King Streets in Northampton, around 1907. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The view in 2018:

Taken around the same time as this photo, from the opposite end of Main Street, not a whole lot has changed with the buildings.  However, just about everything else has – the busy intersection no longer has trolley tracks, but has plenty of cars, along with pedestrians and protesters outside the courthouse (left).  As previously mentioned, these photos were taken around the time that Calvin Coolidge was beginning his political career; he would’ve seen this view daily as he walked the half a block from his law office to the courthouse.

Main Street, Northampton, Mass

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Main Street in Northampton, looking east from in front of City Hall, around 1907. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The same view in 2014:

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From this angle, downtown Northampton appears virtually unchanged in over a century.  The first photo is the view that then-state representative Calvin Coolidge would’ve seen as he walked out of City Hall and headed towards his law office.  Within a few years, he would become mayor of Northampton, and from there he quickly moved up the political ranks.

Times Square

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Times Square, as it appeared around 1905. Image courtesy of the Library of Congress, Detroit Publishing Company Collection.

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The same view in 2014:

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The tall building toward the right-hand side of the 1905 photo is actually still there – it’s the Times Square Building, and was the headquarters of the New York Times in the early 20th century, hence the name “Times Square.” The New York Times hasn’t used the building in a century, but it’s still there, covered in billboards, and with the famous New Years ball at the top. Because of the building’s narrow dimensions, it’s actually more profitable to cover it in billboards and electronic signboards instead of renting it out.  Otherwise, all of the other buildings in the first picture are either gone or are completely hiding behind billboards and signs.  I think I like the 1905 photo better.

Corner of Main & State Streets, Springfield

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The northeast corner of Main and State in Springfield, sometime in the 19th century.  Photo from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

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The same location, around 1892. Photo from Picturesque Hampden (1892).

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The corner in 2014:

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Many of these Springfield street scenes follow a predictable pattern over the past 150 years or so – first, a pre-Civil War Federal style commercial block, followed by a larger, more ornate building in the latter part of the 19th century, and finally some sort of modern, 20th century structure.  In this case, we clearly see all three generations of commercial development at the corner of Main and State, culminating with the MassMutual Center of the 1970s.  Of particular interest is the building in the second photo – above the entrance is a sign that reads “G. & C. Merriam & Co Publishers,” the publishers of the Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Today, the company is still headquartered in Springfield, just up the hill on Federal Street.  See this post and this post for a few other angles of the neighborhood that is now the MassMutual Center.

Chicopee Bank Building, Springfield

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The Chicopee Bank Building, at the corner of Main and Elm, sometime before 1889.  Photo from Springfield Present and Prospective (1905).

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The same location, between 1889 and 1895. Photo courtesy of James Ward Birchall Collection.

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The scene in 2014:

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The original building was built in 1835, at the same time as the other three-story commercial buildings on and around Court Square. It was demolished in 1889 and replaced by the current structure, which survives with minimal changes. The building to the left, however, has been trimmed down in height. On the other side, along Elm Street, the 1835 Byers Block survives as a remnant of what the old Chicopee Bank building once looked like.

Corner of Dwight and Sanford Streets, Springfield

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The building that once stood at the corner of Dwight and Sanford Streets. Photo from Springfield Present and Prospective (1905).

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The location in 2014:

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As seen in today’s photo, the buildings in the first photo don’t exist anymore, and in fact neither does the street on the right, Sanford Street. The first photo shows two different 17th century houses: the old Nathaniel Ely Tavern in the foreground, built in 1660, and the Margaret Bliss House just beyond it, built around 1695. Obviously both buildings are long gone. I don’t know when they were demolished, but it is safe to say they were gone before the MassMutual Center was built in the 1970’s.